Energy efficiency at Elderly Centre in Hong Kong

However, there is another school of thought that differs as pertains to the reason why companies strive to find more energy efficient alternatives; money. Energy costs in the healthcare industries, elderly assistance homes included, spend a considerable amount of their expenditure accounts on energy costs. By this logic, it would make economic sense for these organizations, in healthcare and elsewhere, to find more energy efficient alternatives that would means increased saving and thus increased revenue. While this feasibility study is directed at the energy efficiency of facilities that are based in Hong Kong, there are parallels that can be drawn to other countries that face similar issues and that therefore seek similar solutions. The Department of Energy in the United States conducted a study in which is measured the commercial energy efficiency of the country as based on the end use intensities of commercial building and they developed some indicators such as space heating and lighting intensity as key factors to energy efficiency.

Healthcare facilities in Hong Kong and around the world are trying to establish sustainable practices. The reason as to why sustainability in healthcare facilities such as elderly care homes, is because both the institutions and the rest of the public. An elderly care facility is a subset of healthcare facilities. The energy requirements of an ordinary healthcare facilities can therefore be considered to parallel those of a elderly care facility. Healthcare facilities operate full time with no breaks even on public holidays. Another aim of this feasibility study is to determine the current state of healthcare facilities as pertains to energy efficiency. The study will also look to identify some of the effects of high energy consumption in health care facilities as well as identifying comparing how alternative energy conservation would benefit the healthcare facilities and the environment.

Finally, the feasibility study will focus on recommendations on how elderly care facilities and other health care facilities in general will implement sustainable energy conservation plans. Background of the problem The global population is on the increase and this has had the reverse effect on the natural resources. This affects most developed countries and cities such as Hong Kong. For the sake of this feasibility study a similar study that was conducted in Argentina albeit for school buildings will be used. The energy consummation data with relation to the floor area in order to determine energy efficiency, Energy Use intensity were used in the previous study and will be used in this study as well. The EUIs will then be ranked in order in order to come up with a benchmark table.

This method of normalization is ordinarily used in order to determine the energy use performance of commercial building world-wide. For example, a similar model was used in the Singapore e-Energy Benchmarking System. This will be done using the step wise regression approach. In this case, we would let X1,…. , Xn be the set of independent variables such as the age of the building or even floor space Next consider that m is the sample size of the input-output data. The standardized data will therefore be obtained using the following formula X*i=X-Xi/Si and in this case i=1,…. , and Xi and Si are the sample average and the standard deviation respectively. Like mentioned above, Hong Kong only has 30 healthcare facilities that are fitted with sustainable energy equipment.

These facilities are recorded to be more cost friendly towards their customers and serve a larger base compared to healthcare facilities that do not have the sustainable energy consumption plans. While some of the healthcare are subsidized and are therefore affordable to their customers, government spending on these healthcare facilities is considerably higher than in their alternatives and considering that the money for sustainability comes from the general populace, there is a lot to complain about. The amount that consumers spend should not be the only matter of concern. The quality of services that are being provided should also be taken into consideration. IAQ has a special role in high performance buildings. Energy efficient and high performance buildings like healthcare facilities need to serve special functions for people that live, work and learn insider the buildings.

The buildings should be made in such a way that they promote the health of individual as well of the comfort and the productivity of the occupants and this is especially in the case of elderly care facilities. The main relationship between IAQ and the energy consumption of a building is the external air ventilation. However, there are many other related factors. Delta T is the difference between the indoor and outdoor temperatures and the delta W is the humidity ratio difference. As pertains to the second equation, it can be considered to be indicative of the fact that an increase in the ventilation rate means an increase in the energy that is required to heat or cool the outdoor air.

These equations show the most important relationships between indoor air quality and energy consumption of a building. However it is important to note that there are other important relationships that should be taken into consideration and this is especially the case when thinking of the ventilation of a building and its effects on the indoor air quality of the same. The first factor to consider and one that has something to do with the first equation is that the equation only deals with singular zone relationship and as such doesn’t address the interzone contamination as facilitated by transport or the air distribution. This is often done through improving the thermal integrity of the building envelope and at the same time increasing equipment efficiency of cooling equipment and employing effective control approaches.

Other measures that are often addressed include lighting fixtures, plugging loads as well as outdoor air ventilation. From the literature above, it is not a surprise that IAQ and energy efficiencies of a building are thought off as conflicting goals. This is however not the case. The reason for this is because some energy efficiency strategies can degrade IAQ while others might not. Second, the IAQ can be improved by controlling the contaminant source. And this would not have an effect on energy consumptions since it would not necessitate the reduction of the ventilation rate. Third, improving cleaning and maintenance practices would improve the air quality without affecting energy consumption too much. Finally, integrated pest management would both improve on IAQ of a building and still have no effect on the energy consumption of a building.

There are many other strategies that can and should be adopted by high functioning buildings that are looking to upkeep IAQ and at the ant time be energy efficient. This code determines the minimum/ maximum requirements as pertains to the luminous efficacy, lamp control gear loss as well as lighting power density as well as encouraging the usage of natural light as much as possible. The government of Hong Kong also conducted pilot studies that employed the use of energy efficient lamp fittings in addition to electronic ballasts and the results were promising. The pilot studies indicated that employing the usage of energy efficient light fittings was responsible for a substantial decrease in energy consumption as well as lower spending and better visual appeal.

In addition to the low energy consuming light fittings, dimming controls showed promising results when it came to energy conservation to the point of exceeding the target values. The usage of daylight was considered to the most sustainable as zero energy consumption was achieved through this method and studies show that this is the best source of light in terms of matching visual responses. This is in terms of the health of the occupants of the building, energy consumption environmental sustainability and even financial spending on energy. References ASHRAE (2010c). ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62. 1-2010 Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. , Atlanta, GA. The characteristics of photosensors and electronic dimming ballasts in daylight responsive dimming systems.